sauce
Americannoun
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sauces
plural
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any preparation, usually liquid or semiliquid, eaten as a gravy or as a relish accompanying food.
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stewed fruit, often puréed and served as an accompaniment to meat, dessert, or other food.
cranberry sauce.
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something that adds piquance or zest.
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Informal. sauciness; impertinence; impudence.
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Slang. Usually the sauce hard liquor.
He's on the sauce again.
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Archaic. garden vegetables eaten with meat.
verb (used with object)
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sauces,
present (3rd person singular)
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sauced,
past participle, past
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saucing
present participle
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to dress or prepare with sauce; season.
meat well sauced.
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to make a sauce of.
Tomatoes must be sauced while ripe.
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to give piquance or zest to.
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to make agreeable or less harsh.
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Informal. to speak impertinently or saucily to.
noun
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any liquid or semiliquid preparation eaten with food to enhance its flavour
-
anything that adds piquancy
-
stewed fruit
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dialect vegetables eaten with meat
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informal impudent language or behaviour
verb
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to prepare (food) with sauce
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to add zest to
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to make agreeable or less severe
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informal to be saucy to
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
saucesimple
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saucessimple
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have saucedperfect
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has saucedperfect
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am saucingprogressive
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are saucingprogressive
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is saucingprogressive
-
have been saucingperfect progressive
-
has been saucingperfect progressive
Past
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saucedsimple
-
had saucedperfect
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was saucingprogressive
-
were saucingprogressive
-
had been saucingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sauce
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Middle French, from Late Latin salsa, noun use of feminine of Latin salsus “salted,” past participle of sallere “to salt,” derivative of sāl “salt”; see also salt 1
Explanation
A sauce is a nearly-liquid or soft topping or condiment for food. You might prefer your spaghetti with tomato sauce and your broccoli with cheese sauce. The cuisine of every country and region has its own sauces, from chutney served with Indian dosas to Hollandaise sauce on eggs Benedict and caramel sauce dolloped on sticky toffee pudding. You can even use sauce as a fancy verb: "Shall I sauce the beef?" Figuratively, to sauce someone is to speak in an impudent or cheeky way.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
One by one, they lifted a package of cheese sauce and poured out the liquid in a slow orange ribbon.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
She didn’t get the noodles, scallions or soy sauce for “cold sesame noodles.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026
I try the pork and corn pot-stickers with XO scallop sauce, plump, garlicky, fast.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
The smell hits first, garlic and char on skewered meat, chiles brushed over buns, oyster sauce mingling with the syrupy edge of black vinegar on sizzling noodles.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026
Edamame and wild rice in a bowl with tender squash topped with lii pwayr—saskatoon berries—in a thick sauce, almost a gravy?
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Nobody wants to order mozzarella sticks anymore, they want the adventure of finding the best secret combo of mozzarella sticks dipped into various sauces in the cornucopia of a Chili’s Triple Dipper.
From Slate ● Aug. 14, 2026
It carries enough bright acid to pair with grilled meats and creamy pasta sauces, enough earthiness to complement mushrooms and truffles and a savoriness that plays well with roasted veggies and herb-heavy dishes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026
I am an avowed condiment hound, especially when two sauces are doing different jobs.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
Last year, Evans told The Times that the interview format, with its squirm-inducing sauces, was a tactic to turn what might otherwise be a typical press tour interview into something raw and real.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
It’s in the salad dressing too, and the sauces for the nuggets, not to mention Isaac’s dessert.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
Ferrell said later that he was glad to be in the back row because it meant nobody behind him got sauced.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
I’m also a fan of intentionally included frico, like small crisps interspersed throughout a delicately sauced pasta or a green salad that has crunchy bits of frico all throughout for texture, color and flavor.
From Salon ● Mar. 15, 2025
The capers themselves are fried to create a crisp garnish for the sauced asparagus.
From Washington Times ● Sep. 12, 2023
Riding the wave of an obsessive interest in all forms of fried chicken, crispy chicken skins are the base for nachos at pop-ups, and sauced and spiced as appetizers in restaurants.
From New York Times ● Dec. 27, 2022
They roasted apples in the fire, but ate the pasty cold, and hunger sauced it better than the finest cook could have done.
From "The Door in the Wall" by Marguerite de Angeli
While explaining that the paper used to occupy the whole building, employing over 1000 people, our frenemy Ken remarks, “That’s absolutely insane, if I do say so myself,” saucing each word with condescension.
From Salon ● Sep. 4, 2025
Of this generous, very pretty platter, my only sorrow was an uneven saucing, leaving one side somewhat bereft of the overall excellence.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
Ms. Sarikaya laughed and then the two of them discussed whether to blanch noodles before saucing them; Ms. Olsen prefers a quick boil, while Ms. Sarikaya worries that it will leave the noddles too watery.
From New York Times ● Aug. 10, 2017
But for the last couple of weeks, two guys known for making pizzas in Altadena have been frying and saucing excellent chicken wings out of a corner of the store.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2016
I told her, and she almost took my breath away by telling me that I had been "saucing" Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Alexandra.
From Through St. Dunstan's to Light by James H. Rawlinson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
